AD5421 - Microcontroller No-OS Driver

Supported Devices

Evaluation Boards

Overview

The AD5421 is a complete, loop-powered, 4 mA to 20 mA digital-to-analog converter (DAC) designed to meet the needs of smart transmitter manufacturers in the industrial control industry. The DAC provides a high precision, fully integrated, low cost solution in a compact TSSOP package and LFCSP packages.

The AD5421 includes a regulated voltage output that is used to power itself and other devices in the transmitter. This regulator provides a regulated 1.8 V to 12 V output voltage. The AD5421 also contains 1.22 V and 2.5 V references, thus eliminating the need for a discrete regulator and voltage reference.

The AD5421 can be used with standard HART® FSK protocol communication circuitry without any degradation in specified performance. The high speed serial interface is capable of opera-ting at 30 MHz and allows for simple connection to commonly used microprocessors and microcontrollers via a SPI-compatible, 3-wire interface.

The AD5421 is available in a 28-lead TSSOP and a 32-lead LFCSP specified over the extended industrial temperature range of −40°C to +105°C.

Applications

Industrial Process Control

4mA to 20mA loop-powered transmitters

Smart transmitters

HART network connectivity

The goal of this project (Microcontroller No-OS) is to be able to provide reference projects for lower end processors, which can't run Linux, or aren't running a specific operating system, to help those customers using microcontrollers with ADI parts. Here you can find a generic driver which can be used as a base for any microcontroller platform and also specific drivers for Renesas platforms.

Driver Description

The driver contains two parts:

The driver for the AD5421 part, which may be used, without modifications, with any microcontroller.

The Communication Driver, where the specific communication functions for the desired type of processor and communication protocol have to be implemented. This driver implements the communication with the device and hides the actual details of the communication protocol to the ADI driver.

The Communication Driver has a standard interface, so the AD5421 driver can be used exactly as it is provided. There are three functions which are called by the AD5421 driver:

SPI_Init() – initializes the communication peripheral.

SPI_Write() – writes data to the device.

SPI_Read() – reads data from the device.

Driver architecture

The implementation of these three functions depends on the used microcontroller.

The following functions are implemented in this version of AD5421 driver:

Watchdog Timer

Reference Project Overview

The demo program writes a value to the DAC register, reads the die temperature and displays it on the screen.

Software Project Tutorial

This section presents the steps for developing a software application that will run on the Renesas Demo Kit for RL78G13 for controlling and monitoring the operation of the ADI part.

Two software applications have to be used: Applilet3 for RL78G13 (a tool that automatically generates device drivers for MCU peripheral functions) and IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RL78 (the integrated development environment).

Step 1 - Applilet3 for RL78G13

Run the Applilet3 for RL78G13 tool and create a new project for R5F100LE processor. Select IAR Compiler build tool, a project name, a location for the new project and press OK.

Keep the default Pin assignment setting and click Fix settings.

Now the desired peripherals can be configured and the code can be generated. For example, if the clocked serial interface 10 (CSI10) has to be configured, select the Serial peripheral, choose for the Channel 2 of Serial Array Unit 0 (SAU0) the CSI10 interface, Transmit/receive function option and then go to CSI10 tab.

To configure the CSI10 interface for serial transmissions of 8 bits, with MSB first, with the data captured on clock's rising edge, with a frequency of the clock of 1 MHz and the idle state high, the settings from the following image have to be made.

After all the desired peripherals are configured click on the Generate Code button and a new workspace and a new project for the IAR Embedded Workbench will be generated. After the code was generated close the Applilet3 for RL78G13 tool.

Step 2 - IAR Embedded Workbench for Renesas RL78

Run the IAR Embedded Workbench and open the workspace created with the Applilet3 tool.

Copy the files extracted from the zip file into the user_src folder, located in the project’s folder.

The new source files have to be included into the project. Add in the user_src group the files from the corresponding folder (Right click on the group and select Add – Add Files…). Because a new Main file was included the r_main.c file from the applilet_src group has to be deleted (Right click on the file and select Remove).

Now the debugger driver has to be selected from the project’s options. Right click on the project name and select Options. From the Debugger category choose the TK Debugger Driver.

Now, the project is ready to be compiled and downloaded on the board. Press the F7 key to compile it. Press CTRL + D to download and debug the project.

In the “Setting the Content of Files to be generated” window select “None” for the “Generate main() Function” option and press Next.

In the “Setting the Standard Library” window press “Disable all” and then Next.

In the “Setting the Stack Area” window check the “Use User Stack” option and press Next.

In the “Setting the Vector” window keep default settings and press Next.

In the “Setting the Target System for Debugging” window choose “RX600 Segger J-Link” target and press Next.

In the “Setting the Debugger Options” and “Changing the Files Name to be created” windows keep default settings, press Next and Finish.

The workspace is created.

The RPDL (Renesas Peripheral Driver Library) has to integrated in the project. Unzip the RPDL files (double-click on the file “RPDL_RX62N.exe”). Navigate to where the RPDL files were unpacked and double-click on the “Copy_RPDL_RX62N.bat” to start the copy process. Choose the LQFP package, type the full path where the project was created and after the files were copied, press any key to close the window.

The new source files have to be included in the project. Use the key sequence Alt, P, A to open the “Add files to project ‘ADIEvalBoard’” window. Double click on the RPDL folder. From the “Files of type” drop-down list, select “C source file (*.C)”. Select all of the files and press Add.

To avoid conflicts with standard project files remove the files “intprg.c” and “vecttbl.c” which are included in the project. Use the key sequence Alt, P, R to open the “Remove Project Files” window. Select the files, click on Remove and press OK.

Next the new directory has to be included in the project. Use the key sequence Alt, B, R to open the “RX Standard Toolchain” window. Select the C/C++ tab, select “Show entries for: Include file directories” and press Add. Select “Relative to: Project directory”, type “RPDL” as sub-directory and press OK.

Because the “intprg.c” file was removed the “PIntPrg” specified in option “start” has to be removed. Change “Category” to “Section”. Press “Edit”, select “PIntPRG” and press “Remove”. From this window the address of each section can be also modified. After all the changes are made press OK two times.

At this point the files extracted from the zip file located in the “Software Tools” section have to be added into the project. Copy all the files from the archive into the project folder.

Now, the files have to be included in the project. Use the key sequence Alt, P, A to open the “Add files to project ‘ADIEvalBoard’” window. Navigate into ADI folder. From the “Files of type” drop-down list, select “Project Files”. Select all the copied files and press Add.

Now, the project is ready to be built. Press F7. The message after the Build Process is finished has to be “0 Errors, 0 Warnings”. To run the program on the board, you have to download the firmware into the microprocessor’s memory.

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